First Photography Project: Photographing Food and Food Styling

My first assignment in Cell Phone Photography was to take three pictures of meals I ate that week. This assignment was selected because all of our photographs are telling a story about ourselves. What we choose to eat every day can tell a lot about a person.

This was my first photo I took and spent around a hour editing:

      This photo may seem simple, but it actually tells a lot about me. Since I was little, pasta has been my absolute favorite meal. Even after around 10 years of constantly eating it, I have surprisingly not gotten sick of it. I even eat the noodles uncooked sometimes! My favorite way to eat pasta is with a little bit of butter and Parmesan cheese on it. In this picture, I decided to add bread crumbs and parsley for decoration. After taking several photos I decided to go along and eat my art. It was amazing.
      I feel as though I did a good job on this photo because the lighting is good and natural. I realized it could be a little more colorful, but I thought all the neutral colors went together nice. I also think I put together the pasta nice and it looks pretty delicious. One thing I don't like about the photo is how the water glass looks. For some reason it turned out purple and I don't know why. I think If I picked out a more square water glass it might look better and more like an actual water glass. Other than that, I think I did pretty alright on this photo. However, there is always room for improvement and I know I can do better next time.


Here is my second photo:

      This photo is of a color ice cream shake/sundae. That is the actual color of the ice cream which I found to be quite pretty. This tells something about me because I really love Ice cream but I don't usually dress it up with much. Instead of whip cream and chocolate, I prefer something more simple like mint Hershey's kisses. Not only do they taste amazing but they also add color and are super cute.
      I think I did pretty good on this photo because it has a lot of color, natural light, and is sweet and simple. It also represents a part of me which is exactly what photos are supposed to do. Some things I think I could change about this photo is maybe the presentation. I could have made the subject look a bit nicer. I also think don't know what happened to the Hershey's kisses, but the stripes on them are outlined a bit weird and if I knew how to fix that I would. Other than that I think the photo is pretty good!

Update: Mrs. Ihde graded my photographs and gave me some advice on this one. She told me that using a brighter background behind the ice cream would help the colors pop more. I'll keep that in mind!


And my last photo:

      I first need to point out that I am the complete opposite of a morning person. But sometimes things come up and it is necessary for me to wake up in the early hours of the day. If those circumstances do come up, this is my usual breakfast meal! Homemade pancakes are a great breakfast food and they go great with mug of black coffee. So this contributes to my story because it's pretty much the only breakfast I eat.
      One think I immediately didn't like about this photo is the fact that it looks quite similar to the first one. I know that they are two completely different meals but the setup and background looks really similar to me. If I could change one thing, it would probably be the background. I also think the picture could use more color. But other than that I think this photo is alright. For starters, I really like how that cat mug looks because it is completely adorable and because it tells the person looking at the photo how much I love cats. I also like the color of the pancakes and how the syrup fell on them. While taking the photo, the syrup did seep into the pancakes a few times. I know that there is the trick of putting hairspray on them to avoid that but I wasn't about to waste four pancakes! All in all, I think this photo is good but it could use some big improvements.


      So that sums up my first project in Cell Phone Photography. I just need to say that I really love this assignment because it gives us a whole new way to look at photography. Instead of just photographers, this week we became food stylists. I think that is completely awesome!
      I'm also really loving this class because it is giving us a whole new way to take photos with our phones. I have a nice camera, but I think taking good photos on a phone is a really cool new thing to learn. I also love how this class is set up. Not only do we get to explore different subcategories of photography each week, but we also get to learn a bunch of new techniques when it comes to cell phone photography.

Well I believe I've covered everything for Week 2 thoroughly so until next week,
Bye!